Towards social justice in education: contradictions and dilemmas

Abstract

The article builds on prior arguments that research on issues of social justice in education has often lacked constructive engagement with education policymaking, and that this can be partly attributed to a lack of clarity about what a socially just education system might look like. Extending this analysis, this article argues that this lack of clarity is perpetuated by a series of contradictions and dilemmas underpinning 'progressive' debate in education, which have not been adequately confronted. At the heart are dilemmas about what constitutes a socially just negotiation of the binarised hierarchy of knowledge that characterises education in the UK, Australia and elsewhere. Three exemplar cases presented from contemporary education curriculum policy in England and Australia are used to illustrate these dilemmas. We then extend this argument to a series of other philosophical dilemmas which haunt education and create tensions or contradictions for those concerned with social justice. It is maintained that we need to confront these dilemmas in efforts to extend conceptual clarity in what it is we are seeking to achieve; which in term can better equip us to provide the empirical and conceptual information necessary to effectively engage policymaking to remediate inequalities in education.

Gendered Decision-Making About Mathematics Courses: Contributions of Self-Perceptions, Domain-Perceptions, and Sociocultural Factors

“…Mathematics engagement has been reported to be influenced by domain-specific beliefs about the status of the discipline, a perception of how mathematics knowledge is acquired, and opinions on who best acquires it. Recent research has suggested that the discipline of mathematics is perceived by some to be a more prestigious discipline than other domains of learning due the nature and the demand of the knowledge base (Bleazby, 2015;Francis, Mills, & Lupton, 2017). For example, mathematics has a long-established subject matter that emphasises certainty, reliability and absolute truths, in addition, it contains abstract and theoretical concepts that are considered to be intellectually challenging.…”

Þrástef, þagnir og mótsagnir um lýðræðislegt hlutverk íslenskra háskóla

“…Þannig er erfiðara og erfiðara að tryggja sér aðgengi í þeim skólum sem þykja bestir. Rannsóknir hafa sýnt að félagslegur og menningarlegur bakgrunnur nemenda hefur áhrif á taekifaeri, námsval og námsgengi þeirra (Francis, Mills & Lupton 2017;Reay 2016Reay , 2018. Í íslensku samhengi má nefna rannsókn Magnúsar Þórs Torfasonar og Margrétar Sigrúnar Sigurðardóttur (2017), sem sýndi meðal annars fram á mikilvaegi tengslanets háskóla nema þegar kemur að einkunnum og brotthvarfi.…”

Learning the price of poverty across the UK

“…Much critical research has addressed the disparity between central UK government rhetoric on 'closing the disadvantage gap' and the social consequences of educational reforms (eg Ball, 2016;Thompson, McNicholl and Menter, 2016). However, Francis, Mills and Lupton (2017) have argued that research concerned with social justice has often failed to engage with education policymaking. As Apple (2002) pointed out some time ago, the dominance of right wing ideologies and practices in education still need to be challenged.…”